South Korean authorities were combing through mobile phone data, credit card statements and CCTV footage on Tuesday to identify people who visited nightclubs at the centre of one of the capital’s biggest novel coronavirus clusters, Reuters informed.
More than 100 new cases linked to the nightclubs have brought fears of a second wave of infections in a country held up as a coronavirus mitigation success story.
Health authorities have tracked and tested thousands of people linked to the nightclubs and bars in Seoul’s Itaewon nightlife neighbourhood, but want to find others who they have not been able to identify.
Authorities fear that the fact some of the establishments were known as gay bars might be putting people off coming forward for testing in a country where homosexuality is for many people still taboo.
“We are using telecom station information and credit card transactions from the nightclubs to identify 1,982 of those who are not available,” health ministry official Yoon Tae-ho told a briefing.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) on Tuesday said at least 102 people have tested positive in connection with the cases linked to nightclubs and bars.
Seoul mayor Park Won-soon said 7,272 people had been tested in connection with the cluster, including family members or coworkers of clubgoers.
Officials had identified 10,905 people who were in the Itaewon area when the cluster of cases is believed to have got going this month, based on cell tower information, and another 494 who used credit cards, Park said.
Media outlets have identified the nightclubs the first patient visited as gay clubs, sparking concern that the disclosures and media coverage could out lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people against their will or lead to discrimination.
Park said another 20-year-old man who had visited a different club had tested positive, raising concern that the outbreak may not be limited to the venues initially identified.
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